OCEAN NOT OUR GARBAGE COLLECTOR

Re: Plastic and a hard place, letter, Jan. 5

I couldn’t stop laughing at another scintillating letter from Jill Young. What a great sense of humour.

On the serious side, Jill makes a good point that Ottawa garbage doesn’t end up in the oceans. If there are eight million tons of plastic going into the oceans yearly, there must be a lot of countries systematically dumping waste into rivers that, according to persistent rumour, all flow into the oceans. Would this not be a great story for a keen journalist to follow up on? If we Ottawans/Canadians ban plastics, there will not be the slightest effect on the oceans.

A word of caution: Please do not tell the government about this problem. They will study it for years and then enact an enormous, job-killing tax. And then sanctimoniously lecture us forever, or until Trudeau’s term is up, whichever comes first.

DAN NAYLOR

OTTAWA

(Looks like Jill isn’t the only one with a great sense of humour.)

BAN PLASTIC BAGS

A number of countries are banning single-use plastic bags, the usual supermarket types, and although this is a good start they should ban all plastic bags in shops.

The ban has been well supported by most people, although there have been cases of plastic bag rage at shops when people have forgotten. This is another example of the decline of standards of some people and no shop assistant should be yelled at for a customer’s mistake.

There are already too many bags in our rubbish tips (landfill sites) and ocean creatures’ stomachs. People need to grow up, get some cloth bags and reuse them.

DENNIS FITZGERALD

MELBOURNE

(Charging 5¢ for plastic shopping bags was meant to solve this)

DO IT OUR WAY

Re: Coming soon, believe it or not — Islamic Party of Ontario, Tarek Fatah column, Jan. 2

I’m sorry … did I miss something here? I’d like to know where the “Islamic Party of Ontario” gets off telling Ontarians what our religion is. First off, this party isn’t a given yet, and considering their ideology their party shouldn’t be given any status at all in this country, let alone our province. Why is it Canadians are being called racist and Islamaphobes the minute we open our mouths to voice our opinions regarding their traditions, culture and Sharia law when most of those fly in the face of what Canadians know and hold dear? Yet they are free to make threats against those who disagree with them.

The two cultures are not compatible in any way, shape or form. This is our country and if they are so determined to live according to their ways, then why didn’t they immigrate to or claim refugee status in many of the other Islamic countries?

Our own PM is ignoring our Canadian traditions, culture and laws to appease foreigners and this is one of the reasons the animosity toward immigration/refugees is growing. You want to move here … then be prepared to live our way and respect and abide by our laws. Your laws have no place here.